Politics and booksmarts don't seem to have anything in common
If you're smart, successful and wealthy why the heck would you want to run for office? Politicians are constantly forced to deal with a never ending stream of annoying lobbyists, bullshit bills and other assorted nonsense. Instead, surround yourself with your equals, your peers, and pay the Politician, or the people who finance his campaigns, to get done what you need done. Remember, the politician is basically an employee, whether he knows it or not, of your organization. The Koch brothers are good examples of how best to approach politics if you're wealthy, smart and wish to keep what you've accumulated in your own pockets and not those of the ignorant, undeserving and largely clueless masses.
Indeed. I have a bachelor of science degree in CS and It took me about a minute to answer all of those sample questions correctly, no calculator required. How can this guy have a bachelor of science degree and two masters degrees and yet be unable to answer even elementary math problems correctly? Perhaps he is yet another example of an increasing number of "students" who either cheated their way through school or received their degrees from for profit diploma mills or both. You know the type. They often received credit for "life experience" and other such BS. By the way that would be bull shit, not bachelor of science, although at some schools they're apparently not so dissimilar. This is what happens when we send everyone to college, it makes a mockery of what used to be a substantial achievement: a university degree.
In fact, it's probably impossible. English and other natural languages are context-sensitive. The precise meanings of some statement(s) in context-sensitive languages cannot be determined solely from the statements themselves without additional information that is external to the languages. For example, the double entendre. If you want another real world example a rule system that's been mucked up by natural language, you need look no further than the various legal codes and presently in use around the world and the lawyers who profit from and manipulate ambiguities therein.
Which are becoming less and less relevant as time goes on or, if you prefer, relegated to performance critical niches. Witness the rise of virtualization, cloud and grid computing and other abstract methods of computing. After a certain point bit shifting, pointer arithmetic, manual memory management and other low level operations are less and less essential and show up only where program logic dictates and not as necessary, but unrelated, adjuncts to other common programming tasks. In the virtualized computing world that we are moving towards, the advantages of abstract virtual machine languages, like Java and the.NET languages, with their massive libraries become more and more apparent.
Incorrect. Our destiny, whatever it may be, will be played out here on Earth. If you doubt that then the following two articles from Do the Math, Galactic-Scale Energy and Why Not Space?, should make it clear that any promises of a "destiny in space" are false at best and may even be dangerous if they distract us from solving our pressing problems here on Earth.
If we don't force ourselves down this path, we're never going to get off this rock.
There will probably never be large numbers of people living anywhere but here on Earth. The notion that mankind has a "destiny in space" is a false hope at best and a potentially dangerous distraction if we permit it to interfere with needed steps to preserve our planet for future generations. For those interested in the details, may I suggest the following two articles from Do the Math: Galactic-Scale Energy and Why Not Space?
Indian names = outsourced, two-bit programmers in an Indian code sweatshop.
As un-PC as it might be to say this, there's some truth in it. Many people have been burned at one time or another by cheap software, especially from Indian outsourcing shops, so like it or not the meme has currency.
And what did Greenpeace do to deserve to be despised by you and your "rational" Joe Sixpacks?
Oppose nearly every aspect of modern living and seek constantly to ban or rollback the hard won progress of the last few centuries? The list is nearly endless. Nuclear Power? Opposed. Bleach and other essential disinfectant chemicals? Opposed. Any sort of combustion based power plant (coal, oil, natural gas)? Opposed. Fishing? Opposed. If Greenpeace had their way, a substantial portion of the humans presently living on this planet would have already starved to death or died from easily preventable diseases all in the name of a "pristine" environment. That's their problem. They value the environment too highly, even more highly than the continued existence of their fellow humans. So yeah, when Joe Sixpack sees a bunch of leftie wing nuts who want to confiscate his RV, ban his truck, downsize his home and generally make his life miserable so that some bait fish or rare worm can survive, he gets pissed. Greenpeace should change their slogan to something like, "opposing all human progress for over 30 years"...
Yeah they aren't the ones holding wars in neighbouring countries for reasons that were all proved false killing women and children
What do you suppose that Hezbollah has been doing in Lebanon for the past 30 years, to cite just one example, handing out humanitarian aid and rebuilding? Please.
they arn't sending planes over our territory
Because they've no planes to send. if they could, they would.
they aren't the ones creating a computer virus to disrupt our research
You mean they can't research and build a nuclear weapon without interference? Well, cry me a river.
pulling off assassinations illegally in countries we aren't even at war with
The US has been at war with Iran, at least covertly, ever since the hostage crisis of 1979; Inter arma enim silent leges
The correct response to this would be to remind the Iranians, in no uncertain terms, that actions have consquences. I'm sure that either the CIA or MI6 could deliver that sort of message in a way that wouldn't be missed by the mullahs.
I am still puzzled by why "Computer Science" and "Mathematics and Computer Science" are listed separately; is this distinction being made by the Wall Street Journal or by the people who were polled to get the data?
If I had to guess, I would say that the distinction was made by those who polled to get the data rather than by the Wall Street Journal editorial staff. The most likely explanation is that a question along the lines of, "what is your degree" yielded different, but seemingly similar responses, for discrete salary ranges. The people compiling the statistics likely choose to treat these responses as distinct, even though you and I know that they're probably both CS degrees by different names from different institutions. Finally, if I may, a personal inquiry: Did you pursue your PhD in CS because you wanted to do research or was it a prerequisite for other employment? I went straight into software development after completing my BS, having no particular desire to pursue a career as a researcher, but I'm always interested to hear from those who've taken the other path. I know, for example, that Google encourages employees to compete their PhDs (not sure if they absolutely require it though). Would you say that it has been worthwhile? Thanks.
I remember my calculus teacher telling us that tuition was $50/semester at the university he attended in the 1950s.
Indeed, there was a time in the United States, not so long ago in the scheme of things, when a motivated student could "work their way" through college by waiting tables or doing other part time work while attending classes as a "full time" student and finishing in 4 years (or less) with little or no debt. It's hard to define exactly when this became an impossibility, but I would guess that the door was already closing on that route by the mid 1970s at the latest, if not before. Now, there is zero chance that a part time job could pay for anything more than books with maybe a bit left over for room and board, but not entirely covering it. If you're in the United States and lack the means to attend college, the military is about the only route left whereby the average student, who isn't dirt poor or a member of a favored minority group, can access significant amounts of college funding (through the GI bill) and even then it amounts to about $40,000 or so total, sometimes more depending upon field and qualifications, and you have to serve several years in the military before you qualify and can begin attending classes. It's also possible to go the ROTC route at some schools, but you have to attend on your own dime for a year or two and meet qualifications before being accepted into the program and receiving the remaining years of your degree paid on scholarship with the mandatory service requirement coming after graduation and commissioning as a newly minted 01. In practice, this means that many ROTC candidates come from middle class backgrounds where the parents have enough money to pay for some college, but not all 4 years.
The discrepancy is probably due to the confusion amongst the general populace of what "Computer Science" actually is and the bewildering assortment of "computer" degrees offered by the various US institutions. To say that one "double majors" in CS and math is actually somewhat of a misnomer because CS, being an abstract field of inquiry, is essentially a specialized branch of mathematics with some practical tool use and experimentation thrown in by way of programming and use of computers to explore practical applications of theoretical aspects of computation. Actually, the mathematical basis for modern CS predates the invention of the electronic digital or even mechanical computation by several centuries. However, it was mostly impractical to explore this field without the benefit of modern technological assistance, so it received little interest among mathematicians until the technology advanced enough to make serious study practical. I will grant you that this is a simplified overview, but hopefully you get the point.
There shouldn't be any excuse for tuition to be skyrocketing like it has for as long as it has.
Have you seen the name brand US universities lately? Acres upon acres of gleaming new buildings full of research labs, lecture theaters and miles of office corridors, conference rooms, smaller classrooms and all chocked full of the latest and most sophisticated technology and equipment. And don't forget the athletic facilities complete with tens of thousands of square feet of gym space, with courts for just about every ball game or physical activity known to man, and with separate acquatic centers complete with multiple olympic sized pools, rehabilitation and sports medicine facilities and all of this, for ordinary students, being separate from the training facilities reserved for top ranked college sports teams. Finally, the sprawling dorms, also new, that must be built just to accommodate the tens of thousands of freshmen incoming each year and all of the facilities, personnel and equipment required to support all of that. The money to build Rome had to come from somewhere after all, so it's no wonder why tuition is sky-high at these name brand schools.
Both are now sitting unused in those people's junk closets.
Right next to their R.O.Bs. Console gaming systems have been notorious over the years for all sorts of gimmicks and flash-in-the-pan accessories, many of dubious quality or utility, thrown in to boost initial sales and with little thought given to product lifetime of after sales support.
it may be within the bounds of acceptable for some start-ups,
Only for those already in Seattle. It's not enough of an incentive to move an established company, even just a small startup, to Seattle and even for those startups already there $20,000 is chump change. That will pay the salary of 2 or maybe 3 developers for one month which probably isn't enough time to do anything useful. Startups need millions and at least a couple of years to have a chance at getting into something worthwhile. If that wasn't true, nobody would "waste" time pitching business plans to acerbic and capricious VCs who want controlling majority stakes in anything successful that comes out the other end.
(if you are paranoid enough about the government getting into your computer you should have a usb keyboard hidden somewhere and not actually use the one on your desk to log in
How can you be sure that they haven't opened the computer and installed the keylogger in such a way that any keyboard used with the computer will be logged? If the computer has ever been outside of your custody for any significant length of time, it's suspect. Practically speaking, this level of custody can really only be achieved with a mobile computing device, something small enough to be carried at all times and concealed.
Indeed. Always remember what Cardinal Richelieu said,
"Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him."
The powerful have always arranged the laws so that troublesome people can be easily suppressed at will. It's basic government 101; control the population through fear of arbitrary arrest and proscription. Don't fool yourself into thinking that this practice doesn't continue into the present day in "free" nations.
Not quite. The stored part of the key is combined with the password used as the salt for a cryptographic one-way hash algorithm which generates the secret key used for encryption and decryption when needed. In a proper implementation, the secret key is never actually stored on disk in any permanent form. However, even this system isn't perfect because the secret key can remain in volatile memory for up to 30 seconds or so after power is removed. Additionally, this time can supposedly be prolonged by immediately placing the entire machine in a cold storage box, perhaps with liquid nitrogen coolant, to preserve the state of the volatile memory long enough for it to be copied. However, the most effective method of key recovery is prior surveillance and bugging. For example, the FBI is known to have recovered the PGP keys of mafia associates by clandestinely bugging their keyboards prior to making arrests.
big institutional investors who want to play the volatility game
Then why are they buying Microsoft (MSFT) of all things? Microsoft is a dividend safety play and has been for at least a decade now. It's not Microsoft's fault that these pension funds promised their members payouts based on 8%+ returns when the only way to get them these days is to go risk-on heavy into high yield bonds, small to mid cap stocks or options, futures and derivatives (aka the financial weapons of mass pension fund destruction). They should either man up and sell their shares so that they can make those plays and get those 8%+ returns (or not) or they should sit down, shut up and be happy that they still have their principal and the dividend was paid on time. This is the new reality of investing and personally, I don't think that things will ever get back to 8%+ consistently on average, or at least not here in the United States or Europe. We live in a world of increasing population, increased demand and increasing depletion of natural resources. We won't have another fossil fueled 20th century of growth and investors, just like everyone else, are going to have to get used to that and plan accordingly.
But instead, people are more concerned about sex scandals, abortion, and gay marriage than making the changes needed to make the country great again
Indeed. The Chinese and Indians laugh at us for spending so much time on such frivolous things and for even discussing these things in politics. Your abortion and gay marriage "rights" won't mean jack squat if in the meantime we stand by and watch as this once great nation circles the toilet bowl on its way down the tubes. In fact, I wish that people would just STFU about such things when discussing what sort of policies are best for the long term survival of our nation. People who make these things into voting issues are pissing away their futures while Rome burns.
shareholders lose, management wins. How does that work? I hope I am misunderstanding this situation.
I don't think that you misunderstand the situation; it seems to be the eternal question among shareholders everywhere. Indeed, here are entire companies and legions of analysts devoted to determining just how much effect, if any, executives had on outcomes and whether or not they are being paid relatively too much by way of comparison. It's a tough question to answer definitively and most shareholders are unwilling to risk finding out what happens when executive pay, earned or not, is slashed. The rewards of being right and getting by with cheaper management are just too small and distributed compared to the risks to be worthwhile for most investors. We don't like corruption in executive compensation, but we are willing to tolerate it up to a point, as long as the profits roll in, the dividends are paid (without cuts) and the stock continues to perform at least as well as the market average. Besides, when shareholders don't like management it's more common for CEOs or directors to resign or face dismissal, rather than cutting compensation.
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Politics and booksmarts don't seem to have anything in common
If you're smart, successful and wealthy why the heck would you want to run for office? Politicians are constantly forced to deal with a never ending stream of annoying lobbyists, bullshit bills and other assorted nonsense. Instead, surround yourself with your equals, your peers, and pay the Politician, or the people who finance his campaigns, to get done what you need done. Remember, the politician is basically an employee, whether he knows it or not, of your organization. The Koch brothers are good examples of how best to approach politics if you're wealthy, smart and wish to keep what you've accumulated in your own pockets and not those of the ignorant, undeserving and largely clueless masses.
Indeed. I have a bachelor of science degree in CS and It took me about a minute to answer all of those sample questions correctly, no calculator required. How can this guy have a bachelor of science degree and two masters degrees and yet be unable to answer even elementary math problems correctly? Perhaps he is yet another example of an increasing number of "students" who either cheated their way through school or received their degrees from for profit diploma mills or both. You know the type. They often received credit for "life experience" and other such BS. By the way that would be bull shit, not bachelor of science, although at some schools they're apparently not so dissimilar. This is what happens when we send everyone to college, it makes a mockery of what used to be a substantial achievement: a university degree.
First, natural language programming is hard.
In fact, it's probably impossible. English and other natural languages are context-sensitive. The precise meanings of some statement(s) in context-sensitive languages cannot be determined solely from the statements themselves without additional information that is external to the languages. For example, the double entendre. If you want another real world example a rule system that's been mucked up by natural language, you need look no further than the various legal codes and presently in use around the world and the lawyers who profit from and manipulate ambiguities therein.
For system-level native tasks, C is better.
Which are becoming less and less relevant as time goes on or, if you prefer, relegated to performance critical niches. Witness the rise of virtualization, cloud and grid computing and other abstract methods of computing. After a certain point bit shifting, pointer arithmetic, manual memory management and other low level operations are less and less essential and show up only where program logic dictates and not as necessary, but unrelated, adjuncts to other common programming tasks. In the virtualized computing world that we are moving towards, the advantages of abstract virtual machine languages, like Java and the .NET languages, with their massive libraries become more and more apparent.
Our destiny is in space.
Incorrect. Our destiny, whatever it may be, will be played out here on Earth. If you doubt that then the following two articles from Do the Math, Galactic-Scale Energy and Why Not Space?, should make it clear that any promises of a "destiny in space" are false at best and may even be dangerous if they distract us from solving our pressing problems here on Earth.
If we don't force ourselves down this path, we're never going to get off this rock.
There will probably never be large numbers of people living anywhere but here on Earth. The notion that mankind has a "destiny in space" is a false hope at best and a potentially dangerous distraction if we permit it to interfere with needed steps to preserve our planet for future generations. For those interested in the details, may I suggest the following two articles from Do the Math: Galactic-Scale Energy and Why Not Space?
Indian names = outsourced, two-bit programmers in an Indian code sweatshop.
As un-PC as it might be to say this, there's some truth in it. Many people have been burned at one time or another by cheap software, especially from Indian outsourcing shops, so like it or not the meme has currency.
And what did Greenpeace do to deserve to be despised by you and your "rational" Joe Sixpacks?
Oppose nearly every aspect of modern living and seek constantly to ban or rollback the hard won progress of the last few centuries? The list is nearly endless. Nuclear Power? Opposed. Bleach and other essential disinfectant chemicals? Opposed. Any sort of combustion based power plant (coal, oil, natural gas)? Opposed. Fishing? Opposed. If Greenpeace had their way, a substantial portion of the humans presently living on this planet would have already starved to death or died from easily preventable diseases all in the name of a "pristine" environment. That's their problem. They value the environment too highly, even more highly than the continued existence of their fellow humans. So yeah, when Joe Sixpack sees a bunch of leftie wing nuts who want to confiscate his RV, ban his truck, downsize his home and generally make his life miserable so that some bait fish or rare worm can survive, he gets pissed. Greenpeace should change their slogan to something like, "opposing all human progress for over 30 years"...
Yeah they aren't the ones holding wars in neighbouring countries for reasons that were all proved false killing women and children
What do you suppose that Hezbollah has been doing in Lebanon for the past 30 years, to cite just one example, handing out humanitarian aid and rebuilding? Please.
they arn't sending planes over our territory
Because they've no planes to send. if they could, they would.
they aren't the ones creating a computer virus to disrupt our research
You mean they can't research and build a nuclear weapon without interference? Well, cry me a river.
pulling off assassinations illegally in countries we aren't even at war with
The US has been at war with Iran, at least covertly, ever since the hostage crisis of 1979; Inter arma enim silent leges
.
The correct response to this would be to remind the Iranians, in no uncertain terms, that actions have consquences. I'm sure that either the CIA or MI6 could deliver that sort of message in a way that wouldn't be missed by the mullahs.
I am still puzzled by why "Computer Science" and "Mathematics and Computer Science" are listed separately; is this distinction being made by the Wall Street Journal or by the people who were polled to get the data?
If I had to guess, I would say that the distinction was made by those who polled to get the data rather than by the Wall Street Journal editorial staff. The most likely explanation is that a question along the lines of, "what is your degree" yielded different, but seemingly similar responses, for discrete salary ranges. The people compiling the statistics likely choose to treat these responses as distinct, even though you and I know that they're probably both CS degrees by different names from different institutions. Finally, if I may, a personal inquiry: Did you pursue your PhD in CS because you wanted to do research or was it a prerequisite for other employment? I went straight into software development after completing my BS, having no particular desire to pursue a career as a researcher, but I'm always interested to hear from those who've taken the other path. I know, for example, that Google encourages employees to compete their PhDs (not sure if they absolutely require it though). Would you say that it has been worthwhile? Thanks.
I remember my calculus teacher telling us that tuition was $50/semester at the university he attended in the 1950s.
Indeed, there was a time in the United States, not so long ago in the scheme of things, when a motivated student could "work their way" through college by waiting tables or doing other part time work while attending classes as a "full time" student and finishing in 4 years (or less) with little or no debt. It's hard to define exactly when this became an impossibility, but I would guess that the door was already closing on that route by the mid 1970s at the latest, if not before. Now, there is zero chance that a part time job could pay for anything more than books with maybe a bit left over for room and board, but not entirely covering it. If you're in the United States and lack the means to attend college, the military is about the only route left whereby the average student, who isn't dirt poor or a member of a favored minority group, can access significant amounts of college funding (through the GI bill) and even then it amounts to about $40,000 or so total, sometimes more depending upon field and qualifications, and you have to serve several years in the military before you qualify and can begin attending classes. It's also possible to go the ROTC route at some schools, but you have to attend on your own dime for a year or two and meet qualifications before being accepted into the program and receiving the remaining years of your degree paid on scholarship with the mandatory service requirement coming after graduation and commissioning as a newly minted 01. In practice, this means that many ROTC candidates come from middle class backgrounds where the parents have enough money to pay for some college, but not all 4 years.
The discrepancy is probably due to the confusion amongst the general populace of what "Computer Science" actually is and the bewildering assortment of "computer" degrees offered by the various US institutions. To say that one "double majors" in CS and math is actually somewhat of a misnomer because CS, being an abstract field of inquiry, is essentially a specialized branch of mathematics with some practical tool use and experimentation thrown in by way of programming and use of computers to explore practical applications of theoretical aspects of computation. Actually, the mathematical basis for modern CS predates the invention of the electronic digital or even mechanical computation by several centuries. However, it was mostly impractical to explore this field without the benefit of modern technological assistance, so it received little interest among mathematicians until the technology advanced enough to make serious study practical. I will grant you that this is a simplified overview, but hopefully you get the point.
There shouldn't be any excuse for tuition to be skyrocketing like it has for as long as it has.
Have you seen the name brand US universities lately? Acres upon acres of gleaming new buildings full of research labs, lecture theaters and miles of office corridors, conference rooms, smaller classrooms and all chocked full of the latest and most sophisticated technology and equipment. And don't forget the athletic facilities complete with tens of thousands of square feet of gym space, with courts for just about every ball game or physical activity known to man, and with separate acquatic centers complete with multiple olympic sized pools, rehabilitation and sports medicine facilities and all of this, for ordinary students, being separate from the training facilities reserved for top ranked college sports teams. Finally, the sprawling dorms, also new, that must be built just to accommodate the tens of thousands of freshmen incoming each year and all of the facilities, personnel and equipment required to support all of that. The money to build Rome had to come from somewhere after all, so it's no wonder why tuition is sky-high at these name brand schools.
Both are now sitting unused in those people's junk closets.
Right next to their R.O.Bs. Console gaming systems have been notorious over the years for all sorts of gimmicks and flash-in-the-pan accessories, many of dubious quality or utility, thrown in to boost initial sales and with little thought given to product lifetime of after sales support.
it may be within the bounds of acceptable for some start-ups,
Only for those already in Seattle. It's not enough of an incentive to move an established company, even just a small startup, to Seattle and even for those startups already there $20,000 is chump change. That will pay the salary of 2 or maybe 3 developers for one month which probably isn't enough time to do anything useful. Startups need millions and at least a couple of years to have a chance at getting into something worthwhile. If that wasn't true, nobody would "waste" time pitching business plans to acerbic and capricious VCs who want controlling majority stakes in anything successful that comes out the other end.
they try to get it outlawed or prevent it from becoming mainstream
It's already too late for that now.
(if you are paranoid enough about the government getting into your computer you should have a usb keyboard hidden somewhere and not actually use the one on your desk to log in
How can you be sure that they haven't opened the computer and installed the keylogger in such a way that any keyboard used with the computer will be logged? If the computer has ever been outside of your custody for any significant length of time, it's suspect. Practically speaking, this level of custody can really only be achieved with a mobile computing device, something small enough to be carried at all times and concealed.
Indeed. Always remember what Cardinal Richelieu said,
"Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him."
The powerful have always arranged the laws so that troublesome people can be easily suppressed at will. It's basic government 101; control the population through fear of arbitrary arrest and proscription. Don't fool yourself into thinking that this practice doesn't continue into the present day in "free" nations.
That isn't necessary. Read up on "plausible deniability" as implemented in TrueCrypt. They've already covered the duress angle.
They use the password to decode a key
Not quite. The stored part of the key is combined with the password used as the salt for a cryptographic one-way hash algorithm which generates the secret key used for encryption and decryption when needed. In a proper implementation, the secret key is never actually stored on disk in any permanent form. However, even this system isn't perfect because the secret key can remain in volatile memory for up to 30 seconds or so after power is removed. Additionally, this time can supposedly be prolonged by immediately placing the entire machine in a cold storage box, perhaps with liquid nitrogen coolant, to preserve the state of the volatile memory long enough for it to be copied. However, the most effective method of key recovery is prior surveillance and bugging. For example, the FBI is known to have recovered the PGP keys of mafia associates by clandestinely bugging their keyboards prior to making arrests.
So a person says "I can't recall my password," and there's not a lot that can be done.
I've always liked this exchange from the 1998 film Ronin :
Sam: Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt. That's the first thing they teach you.
Vincent: Who taught you?
Sam: I don't remember. That's the second thing they teach you.
big institutional investors who want to play the volatility game
Then why are they buying Microsoft (MSFT) of all things? Microsoft is a dividend safety play and has been for at least a decade now. It's not Microsoft's fault that these pension funds promised their members payouts based on 8%+ returns when the only way to get them these days is to go risk-on heavy into high yield bonds, small to mid cap stocks or options, futures and derivatives (aka the financial weapons of mass pension fund destruction). They should either man up and sell their shares so that they can make those plays and get those 8%+ returns (or not) or they should sit down, shut up and be happy that they still have their principal and the dividend was paid on time. This is the new reality of investing and personally, I don't think that things will ever get back to 8%+ consistently on average, or at least not here in the United States or Europe. We live in a world of increasing population, increased demand and increasing depletion of natural resources. We won't have another fossil fueled 20th century of growth and investors, just like everyone else, are going to have to get used to that and plan accordingly.
But instead, people are more concerned about sex scandals, abortion, and gay marriage than making the changes needed to make the country great again
Indeed. The Chinese and Indians laugh at us for spending so much time on such frivolous things and for even discussing these things in politics. Your abortion and gay marriage "rights" won't mean jack squat if in the meantime we stand by and watch as this once great nation circles the toilet bowl on its way down the tubes. In fact, I wish that people would just STFU about such things when discussing what sort of policies are best for the long term survival of our nation. People who make these things into voting issues are pissing away their futures while Rome burns.
shareholders lose, management wins. How does that work? I hope I am misunderstanding this situation.
I don't think that you misunderstand the situation; it seems to be the eternal question among shareholders everywhere. Indeed, here are entire companies and legions of analysts devoted to determining just how much effect, if any, executives had on outcomes and whether or not they are being paid relatively too much by way of comparison. It's a tough question to answer definitively and most shareholders are unwilling to risk finding out what happens when executive pay, earned or not, is slashed. The rewards of being right and getting by with cheaper management are just too small and distributed compared to the risks to be worthwhile for most investors. We don't like corruption in executive compensation, but we are willing to tolerate it up to a point, as long as the profits roll in, the dividends are paid (without cuts) and the stock continues to perform at least as well as the market average. Besides, when shareholders don't like management it's more common for CEOs or directors to resign or face dismissal, rather than cutting compensation.